Almost four million refugees in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Uganda are living with the day-to-day uncertainty of whether their basic needs will be met as global aid cuts slash rations and services.
Yet there is some light. The refugee policies of all three countries are shifting from the traditional camp-based approach, which is expensive and demeaningly restrictive, to integration within host communities that encourages self-reliance.
Uganda, Kenya, and Ethiopia have all granted refugees the right to work. They have also authorised, to varying degrees, freedom of movement and the right to own property.
However, administrative and bureaucratic hurdles temper many of these freedoms, and the growing cost-of-living woes in all three countries narrow the economic opportunities available to refugees.
Clearly, there is still a journey to make.
As a first step, refugees and Refugee-Led Organisations (RLOs) need to be recognised as central to the implementation and effectiveness of these progressive policies. For too long, they have been sidelined by governments, refugee agencies, and donors – despite being key to understanding and overcoming the barriers to refugee inclusion.
Refugees bear the burden of aid cuts
The aid squeeze, as Western governments shift their priorities from foreign assistance to security and defense, makes policy reform all the more urgent, especially as refugees are bearing the brunt of these cuts.
In Kenya, the World Food Programme (WFP) has reduced its food basket for more than 800,000 refugees to just 28% of a full ration – the lowest level ever recorded in Kenya. It has also suspended cash transfers, a key measure for boosting people’s nutrition. If the agency does not secure additional funding, further reductions in aid are expected, which will likely deepen frustrations. Ration cuts earlier this year sparked protests and clashes with the police in the Kakuma refugee camp.
The cuts in basic aid leave camp-based refugees stranded without access to adequate food rations or other essential humanitarian services, such as medical care and education.
For more than 18 months, WFP has been able to provide only 60% of the standard ration to the 800,000 refugees it assists in Ethiopia and has halted all its cash and in-kind support in the country. Reflecting the broader crisis, Ethiopia’s 2024 humanitarian plan received just 29% of its requested $3.2 billion.
The hardships have been equally felt in Uganda. The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, is only 17% funded, while WFP was forced to halt food aid in May to nearly one million of the 1.6 million refugees it was assisting. Cash transfers were stopped altogether.
The cuts in basic aid leave camp-based refugees stranded without access to adequate food rations or other essential humanitarian services, such as medical care and education. They also affect refugees transitioning from camps to host communities, who still need support to integrate, undermining progress toward self-reliance.
World Bank support for integration
There are other funding channels that support integration, which aim to benefit both refugees and host communities.
The World Bank’s concessionary lending arm, the International Development Association (IDA), made $2.4 billion available for its Regional Sub-Window for Refugees and Host Communities (RSW) last year. The same amount has been earmarked for the current round, known as IDA21.
RSW enables host countries to implement projects that promote refugee inclusion, economic development, and self-reliance. Host countries are eligible for funding if they have an “adequate protection framework” and a concrete strategy aimed at long-term development solutions that “benefit both refugees and host communities”.
Kenya, Uganda, and Ethiopia have all benefited from the RSW approach.
In Ethiopia, it has supported efforts to grant refugees the right to work, to access education and healthcare, and to move more freely. Uganda also received funding to improve municipal infrastructure in refugee-hosting districts, including access to essential services such as water and healthcare.
Kenya has secured $215 million from RSW, which the World Bank said will be allocated towards projects providing “robust health services” for the approximately 1.8 million people in the host communities of Turkana and Garissa districts, as well as the 590,000 refugees in the corresponding camps of Kakuma and Dadaab.
But the World Bank needs to go further. It should ensure that funding is contingent upon the three countries achieving specific milestones related to the implementation of their refugee policies.
Take Kenya. The government has launched its Shirika Plan, which seeks to reform its highly securitised refugee response by transforming its camps into settlements that are economically integrated with communities in Turkana and Garissa.
But Kenya’s refugee law remains vague on freedom of movement – a central pillar of refugee self-reliance. Refugee leaders, RLOs, and human rights NGOs have long campaigned for that obstacle to be cleared, and the World Bank’s support should be tied to that legal reform.
Late last year, Ethiopia enacted Directive No.1019/2024, which grants refugees and asylum seekers the right to work legally within the country. However, its Agency for Refugees and Returnee Services has not published the number of refugees who have obtained work permits, which is crucial for monitoring the progress of the government’s Makatet initiative, aimed at integrating refugees into national administrative systems. A similar problem exists for Kenya’s refugees, who struggle to obtain work permits.
For Uganda, which has long been praised for its refugee open-door policy, it should implement a system of recognising refugee qualifications to allow them to apply for jobs that correspond with their education levels and work experience. Despite the official recognition of the economic value that refugees generate, many are, in fact, underemployed.
Increasingly, the World Bank’s role in seeking durable solutions to displacement is growing. Yet while that is welcome with Big Aid’s decline, more deep-rooted changes are needed in the way governments and donors meaningfully engage with refugees in shaping their futures.
Localisation with RLOs for RLOs
In recent years, the humanitarian ecosystem has begun to tentatively accept that RLOs – with their lived experience, local knowledge, and organic relationships – are essential rather than complementary actors.
As RLOs advocate for co-creating solutions with their communities – and are demanding to be taken seriously – the importance of meaningful refugee participation has never been greater.
Refugee-Led Organisations are more than just community mobilisers. Refugees and RLOs must be at the centre of the “humanitarian reset” – their engagement and participation institutionalised through formal refugee advisory mechanisms at the national level.
Yet many humanitarian agencies and donors are still to embrace real localisation, despite the lip service paid to the Grand Bargain.
Rigid and inflexible donor systems still resist directing funds to refugees and RLOs. Despite RLOs’ proven cost-effectiveness and capacity – as demonstrated when aid organisations abandoned the camps during COVID-19 and subcontracted their work – RLO funding has remained meager and symbolic.
Many donor agencies deem them risky to fund or lacking “enough” capacity – a determination that is not evidence-based. RLOs are instead funded through multiple intermediaries or philanthropic foundations.
The shakeup in aid presents an opportunity to shift from rhetoric to action by strengthening RLO funding and engagement. This is both a strategic imperative and the right thing to do.
RLOs are more than just community mobilisers. Refugees and RLOs must be at the centre of the “humanitarian reset” – their engagement and participation institutionalised through formal refugee advisory mechanisms at the national level.
Failure to do so will perpetuate the same ineffective humanitarian system that continues to renege on its commitments to refugee inclusion and agency – a system that’s long on lofty promises yet short on delivery.
